


Effective at Midnight

by lifting_belly



Category: The Fall (TV 2013)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Friendship, Kissing, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 13:39:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9237491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifting_belly/pseuds/lifting_belly
Summary: Missing scene, post-3x04. Stella has had a very shitty day, so she calls a friend.





	

Stella runs her hand over her face and sits up, sighing. She props herself up on an elbow and lets her forehead rest in her hand for a moment before inhaling, running her fingers through her hair, and picking up her mobile.

It’s almost ten o’clock, she’s the only one left at work, and this day can fuck off.

And anyway, this is the last place she wants to sleep. Their old space at the stationhouse wasn’t anything special, but these new quarters leave her feeling exposed; they’re too unfamiliar and there’s far too much glass. Her office at the stationhouse felt more like a cavern, with its cot tucked back behind her desk and no view of the outside world.

Except, of course, from inside her dreams.

She needs a drink.

Her eyes consider her phone; then her fingers unlock it. 

She needs a friend.

Stella stands up, hits send on Reed’s number, and walks to the window.

“Hey,” she answers on the second ring. 

“Hi,” Stella answers.

They’ve interacted exactly three times since the shooting, and Stella thinks she’s shown that she can respect Reed’s boundaries, that she can be her friend and colleague as though that kiss and proposition had never happened.

“Everything okay?” Reed asks when Stella doesn’t say more. 

“Sorry,” Stella says quickly. “Just tired. Are you free for a drink?”

“Yes, but you’d have to come here,” she replies.

“Where are you?” Stella asks, eyebrows pulling together.

“At home.”

“Hm.”

“It’s just me and the girls here, and they’re asleep,” Reed says softly. “Come have a drink.”

When Stella hesitates, she adds, somewhat shyly, “I’d like to see you.”

“Okay.”

Stella scrawls Reed’s address on a piece of scrap paper, feeling too heavy to let her uncertainty stop her, too exhausted to care.

 

* * *

 

Reed greets her at the door, opening it before Stella can knock.

“Don’t want the bell to wake them,” she explains as Stella enters.

There’s an intimacy to this moment, to this dark still foyer, as Reed locks up behind her. It’s like stepping into an entirely different world, and Stella finds it both alienating and soothing.

She steps out of her shoes and hangs her coat. When Reed gestures for her to follow, she does.

In the kitchen, Reed has pulled out her current small stock of liquor and wine.

“I didn’t know what you’d want,” she explains as they enter.

“Thank you,” Stella says. “For letting me come round.”

“Letting you?” Reed asks with a half-laugh. “I sort of had to coerce you.”

Their eyes meet as they come to stand next to the counter. 

“Still,” she says, “Thank you.”

Reed smiles warmly and asks, “What do you want to drink?”

“Wine,” she answers, “You pick.”

Reed selects a red to uncork. 

Stella watches her pour two glasses and follows wordlessly to the small kitchen table.

They sit and sip. It’s so quiet, and both women hesitate to break the stillness with words. Eventually, though, Reed speaks.

“I saw the news.” She clears her throat. “Eastwood’s statement.”

“Mmm.” Stella’s gaze is fixed on the liquid in her glass. “I advised the DPP not to bring charges; he disagreed.”

“You’re blaming yourself.” She furrows her brow a bit, but it's not a question.

Stella sips her wine, unnerved by Reed’s ability to read her.

“You couldn’t have known,” Reed assures.

“I saw it coming.” Stella’s voice is soft in an unusual way. “I should’ve fought harder for her.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Scoffing a bit, she swirls the wine in her glass and downs the last big gulp.

Stella stands, pours herself another glass, and looks slowly around Reed’s kitchen. She walks to the fridge and studies the ephemera it displays: photos, reminders, magnets, bills, greeting cards, and snippets of Reed’s handwriting. The corner of her mouth quirks up as she scans children’s artwork, with their messages of love.

There is something strangely erotic about Stella being here in Reed’s domestic space, and about how practiced she is at containment. She gives little away, but Reed is a careful observer. She watches and waits.

“Do you think it’s possible,” Stella begins eventually, eyes fixed on a photo of Reed’s daughters, “To protect victims when you’re part of a system that only makes more of them?”

Reed exhales heavily, a borderline sigh really, at the scale of the question, at its deep ambivalence. She sips her wine, a thoughtful expression on her face.

Stella turns to look at her, expectant.

“Possible? Yes,” Reed answers after a few moments.

“But?”

“The system doesn’t really care about victims. We can’t escape being implicated in that.” Reed gets up and walks to stand across the island from her. “But you already protect victims from within that system every day.” She thinks there’s a sheen of moisture in Stella’s gaze when it darts down. “You do it every day, in spite of that.”

Stella nods a little and looks up to meet Reed’s eyes.

“It’s not your fault,” she tells her again, this time reaching out to lay her hand atop her friend’s.

In response, Stella’s hand turns and grasps Reed’s, and they both look down. Stella stiffens and starts to pull away, embarrassed by the unconscious action, by the need it conveys.

But Reed’s hand won’t let hers go, and that’s what finally does it. One tear escapes, and then another. Her watery eyes shoot up at the ceiling as she reins in her emotion. Putting her palms on the counter in front of her, she hangs her head a little and breathes.

Reed goes around the island wanting to wrap her in her arms and tell her she can cry here, tell her to let it go. But Stella seems skittish in her vulnerability, and Reed wants her to stay, so she chooses a sort-of almost-embrace. Standing next to Stella, her hip resting against the fixture, their bodies almost touching, Reed puts one hand on the counter and one hand on Stella’s back.

“I’m okay,” Stella says softly, and she relaxes slightly under Reed’s touch.

“I know,” Reed agrees. “But it’d be okay if you weren’t.”

Stella turns her head to meet Reed’s eyes.

“Thank you,” she whispers, her expression relaxing.

Reed responds with a small smile and begins running her hand slowly, gently, up and down and over her back.

They stay like this for a few minutes, Stella with her head hung low, Reed right there next to her, one hand aimlessly but tenderly caressing her back. It should be awkward, but somehow, it’s not. It should be awkward, but somehow, it produces the most calm Stella has felt since the shooting. She straightens a little, a different anxiety filling her belly.

Reed steps back a bit as Stella lifts her palms from the counter, stands up straight, and stretches her neck and shoulders. When she turns to face her, Reed can’t help but grin. At work and in public, Stella exudes such control that she usually ends up seeming like so much more than she really is. But here, in Reed’s kitchen with mascara smudges under her eyes, exhausted in every way, she’s just a woman. Far more like than unlike most.

“What’s so funny?” she asks.

“Not funny,” she replies, “You just look kind of… cute right now.”

“Cute?” It throws her. People don’t often call Stella “cute,” and the times she can remember, it was used pejoratively. She’s surprised that she rather likes being called cute by Reed. It’s definitely not pejorative but soft and gentle and kind of sexy.

“Yeah,” Reed murmurs, taking a step toward her.

Staring at her, Stella remains entirely still (but for rising chest) as Reed reaches up and brushes her hair away from her face a little. Fingers grace her cheek, and another hand covers the one resting on the counter, and when Reed’s hand slips behind her neck, Stella only needs the slightest hint of pressure to meet her lips halfway.

The first few seconds are light and tentative. The silence of the house, of the night, of the complete and utter anomaly of the two of them together like this, grows louder around them.

Reed pulls Stella to her gently and kisses her harder, fuller.

Then again.

Stella’s free hand rises to Reed’s waist and slides up her back, and she returns the kiss with a sigh.

They kiss slowly, tenderly, and the air begins simmering. Their lips part. Their tongues caress. Reed moans quietly, and Stella hums in response.

But then Stella pulls away, saying, “We shouldn’t,” and stepping back. Just barely, really, but enough. “The case,” she adds in response to Reed’s knit brow. “I can’t compromise it.”

“How is this compromising it?”

“I head the taskforce. It would be seen as an error in judgment if I were to have anything more than a professional relationship with members of the team. The defense could use it to discredit the entire case. The media would be all over it.”

“But sleeping with Olson wasn’t an error in judgment?”

Stella’s eyes tell Reed it was a low blow. Her voice is flat when she answers, “He wasn’t on the taskforce.”

“Tom Anderson is.”

Stella’s eyes drop down and away. She doesn’t say anything.

“You showed up to work with him,” Reed explains. “Word gets around.”

“I should go,” Stella says quietly and moves to turn away, but Reed’s fingers latch around her wrist, stopping her cold.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” she says, and there’s a slight tremor in her voice. “I’m trying to ask what’s different here.”

Stella’s eyes dart down to where Reed’s fingers wrap around her, where she can see what the pressure of her grip does to her flesh. She begins speaking well before her gaze shifts back up to meet Reed’s.

“I’m under intense scrutiny. My investigation is being investigated. I was questioned under caution. Every choice is being picked apart, examined from multiple angles. He’s hired the best criminal defense solicitor in Belfast.” She pauses. “And you were pretty clear last time this happened that you didn’t want the news to reach Croydon.”

Reed sighs and hangs her head. She abandons her grip on Stella to bring her hands to cover her own face. Breathing evenly, she lets out a sound of frustration.

“Okay,” she says softly before dropping her hands and meeting Stella’s gaze again. “Of course, you’re right.” Stella hums a quiet response then Reed adds, “I don’t like it.”

“Me neither,” Stella says, split between smiling at the confirmation that Reed likes kissing her and scowling at the state of their… what, exactly? That is not a question for right now. 

“I mean obviously, I’d never want to put your career or the case in jeopardy,” Reed explains.

“Nor I your marriage,” Stella says with a tight smile.

“My marriage?” Reed asks, nearly a snort.

Stella had said it partially as a courtesy, partially as a joke, and partially as a way to keep from kissing her again. She certainly hadn’t said it expecting this reaction. It’s surprising, though she’s not displeased. Curiosity and ideas begin filling her mind.

“Is that not important?” Stella asks carefully.

“Not as important as it should be.” Stella’s eyes bore into Reed’s, asking for more. “We haven't been happy for awhile. 

“I’m sorry,” Stella’s brow relaxes and she takes Reed’s hand. “I had no idea.”

“I haven’t told you,” Reed replies with a half-smirk, stepping closer to Stella again. “Because this isn’t about that.”

“No?”

“I can’t let you leave without kissing you again,”

“You can’t?”

“I mean, I could. If you asked me to. I could, and I would.” She bites her bottom lip and looks a little pained. “I don’t know when my next chance will be.”

Stella exhales, her lips quirk a bit.

“Hm,” she murmurs, moving in even closer to Reed, “Even though we just agreed we shouldn’t? That we wouldn’t?”

Reed glances at an appliance behind Stella.

“What if the terms of our agreement weren’t effective until midnight?”

Stella smirks and their arms snake around one another’s waist.

“What time is it now?” she asks in a whisper.

“11:46,” Reed whispers back. 

And then they’re kissing.

And they have enough time for it to become feverish and passionate, for it to settle down into exploration, for hands to find small exposed planes of skin, for there to be playfulness and sweetness and heat.

And when it’s midnight, they’re surprisingly obedient, and all they can say to one another is that, for the time being, maybe they shouldn’t be alone together like this. No matter how much they might want to.

At 12:08, Reed sneaks a peck on her cheek before pushing Stella out the door.

Though they are lost again to each other, both are unable to imagine a future in which this doesn’t happen again.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't been able to produce much for the Tethered series because I've been mulling over series 3 for a bit. So here's this instead, and there will probably be one more series 3 missing scene fic before I'll return to the Tethered stuff I have in-progress.
> 
> <3


End file.
